Money, Money, Money: The sale of Giovinco and what it means

Let's start with the obvious. Sebastian Giovinco will be missed. Mostly by Toronto fans, but also by MLS fans in general. The little Italian thrilled fans for four seasons, scoring 73 league goals, many of them of the jaw dropping variety.

He also won. Three Voyageurs Cups and a Supporters Shield were the appetizer to the ultimate prize. The 2017 MLS Cup championship.

Dream stuff for long-time TFC fans who lived through a lot of bad football to get to that day.

He was a Bloody Big Deal.

And, now he's gone. Not with a bang, but rather a pout. Walking out the door in the middle of the night with an Instagram post that thanked the fans and accused the ownership of cheaping out, no longer caring about the results on the pitch.

It's a time honoured strategy of players. A Blame the suits move. They're the bad guys that don't care about you little guys in the stands. Make sure to come out for my autograph signing in 2023. Only $50 for a photo!

Let's be clear. Giovinco has every right to chase the paycheque. I wouldn't turn down $30m and neither would you. But, that's what's happening. Had TFC offered Giovinco the same number he'd be perfectly OK with ownership's commitment to winning. It was their evaluation of his worth that informed his opinion.

This was always going to happen. This was a player that left Juventus to join TFC, effectively ending his chance at playing internationally again. If he was driven by glory he signs a cheaper deal with a Sassuolo, Chievo or Genoa, rips it up, and has 20 more caps for Italy by now. No one dreams of leaving Juve for Toronto.

You only leave Juve for two reasons: for money or opportunity to advance your career further. Unless Giovinco thought his agent had misspelled Torino when he sent the offer to him he was coming to Toronto for the money.

And, he's leaving Toronto for the same reason. It was always going to end this way.

In terms of the football, it's going to be difficult for Toronto fans to critically evaluate whether it was right for Toronto to let him walk. Should they have matched the Saudi offer and let Giovinco retire as a TFC player?

Well, he's 32. It's pretty much universally understood that attacking player's peak years are between 23 and 31. The decline after that can be sharp. So, Giovinco is, statistically speaking, past his prime years.

There are outliers though. Is Giovinco trending upwards?

His stats over last four years:

2015 -- age 28, 34 app, 22 goals, 13 assists

2016 -- age 29, 34 app, 21 goals, 16 assists

2017 -- age 30, 29 app, 17 goals, 7 assists

2018 -- age 31, 28 app, 13 goals, 7 assists

His appearances, goals and assists figure has dropped each of the last two seasons. Doesn't seem to be out of line with statistical norms. If his production drops the same percentage this year as it did between 2017 and 2018 he would end up with between 9 and 10 goals in 2019.

That's a quality MLS forward, but not a DP and certainly not a $10m a year DP.

Of course it's also 10 goals TFC is going to need to replace. That's the other side of this move and one that can't be evaluated until it happens. But, by making the move today they have the DP space and money to start that process in the summer, which is generally when MLS teams make their big moves.

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If your game highlights are not being shown on ANY Canadian national sports broadcaster because you signed up with a totally different media partner, then you’re not being taken legitimately. “As Seen On TV” is a catchphrase that goes beyond infomercials

Saw he was not in the 18 again for his club's game today and looked a bit and found he played in a first team-heavy reserve match in the week.
"FC Midtjylland had a number of first-team players. In addition to the mentioned goal scorers were Søren Reese, Manjrekar James, Paulinho and Junior Brumado."
https://www.tipsbladet.dk/nyhed/superliga/oplaeg-og-et-maal-marcondes-var-flyvende-i-uofficiel-fcm-debut
Probably should have left if he is interested in playing first team minutes. But who knows what his thoughts are.

Sept 11th has been revised upwards. It was showing as 1200 the day after the game after 2043 had initially been the number released to the media including the Times Colonist. Hope you are not going to try to seriously claim that the stadium was around half full for that game and the FCE one as it was when numbers like that were being announced earlier in the season.
The problem for the league right now is that there have been a whole string of games where attendance has looked unusually sparse. That's what happens when you neglect to have playoffs and you have a runaway leader for that second championship place and no relegation to keep things interesting at the bottom.
Winding this back to the subject matter of the thread given that sort of backdrop and how difficult it is to find suitable stadia having more than 16 teams and how to accomodate them is unlikely to be an issue the league will face any time soon. I suspect they are a lot more concerned right now over whether season ticket holders who have stopped showing up will renew now the novelty factor and the initial wave of enthusiasm have worn off.

Yeah it's good system. At least the youngsters get to pay a lot. Most of the lower-league clubs are happy to get these kids!
I think Zanatta got a bit out of luck after giving it another shot at Hearts, it then being a bit late in the season for most clubs. Now he signed with a lesser club than he could have IMO.
Still he's getting a lot of mileage in the Scottish leagues!

Froese started and played 71 minutes for Saarbrücken, which lost 0-2 to Bayern Alzenau. The first loss of the season (in 8 games). Saarbrücken immediately lost their top spot to tiny club TSV Steinbach.
Gabriel Boakye entered in the 60 minute for Köln II, which went 0-3 to Borussia Dortmund II.